Reviving IRC: Why you should join #xyuu

[Sam]

So for the last year or so IRC has been on the decline. Top users in #xyuu have a few hundred lines while the norm used to be a few thousand lines. There's a pretty big reason for this: PS Rooms have been getting increasingly popular, drawing new players there instead of IRC. I think there is definitely merit to PS Rooms and I am not trying to talk them down. However, I don't think that they're a complete replacement for IRC.

I am on PS a decent amount (I'm a Leader on PS and a Room Owner for the UU Room) but for me and many others it's really difficult to be engaging with new users. The PS Room gets flooded with a lot of random people who don't really want to contribute and just ask random inane questions. I don't really have a problem with that since those users need some sort of outlet as well. What this does though is disrupt the ability to have really focused discussions and brings the overall chat quality down.

IRC is a little more exclusive in that you aren't going to have these random users who don't have any desire to contribute. Sure it's not going to be anywhere near as active as the PS Room but the quality of discussion is going to be better. I also am not saying to abandon PS for IRC: it's pretty easy to be on both.

The IRC discussion is also a little more casual, giving you a chance to connect with users more. It's how I started off and I got to know people very well through IRC (I only had about 200 posts at October of last year yet I was definitely a part of the forum community). IRC contributions also played a large part in me getting CC. Yes, IRC contributions count towards CC.

In order to join, just follow this link and enter your nick https://client00.chat.mibbit.com/#xyuu@irc.synirc.net

You can also join on other clients like mIRC or Chatzilla. If you have any questions, please ask them in this thread or PM me. I implore you to give IRC a shot.

(NOTE: I go by Starmie on IRC)

 

[teal6]

I don't know if this is a "discussion" topic, but personally the reason I don't use IRC much is because it's mostly, well dead. Self fulfilling prophecy and all that. I like to think we have an excellent community, as judged by the friendship I've made with people through the ladder, PS room and tournaments, so I definitely think if that same spirit is brought to IRC it'll be very popular yet again, so in turn I'll definitely try and do my part to be an active contributor.

 

[Ununhexium]

Yeah irc is pretty dead

I'm there rather often and it's basically just 3 lines whenever someone talks asking for a battle

Like the longest exchange I've had on that channel was like a 10 line exchange with bouffalant

 

[Sweep]

IRC can be brought back to life with the power of appreciation for other users.

A healthy thirst for information is always a good thing for any intrepid Pokemon player. In channels such as #xyuu, you can ask pro players for their opinions about the metagame and improve your knowledge base as a result. You can also ask people for test battles (lol). But wait; there's more! By participating in IRC conversations, you can even make friends and acquaintances along the way! These friends can do things like increase your chances of getting drafted in SPL via cronyism, invite you to IRC and skype cliques where you can merrily alienate users you don't like, and help you line spam in #Pokemon to get a shiny new badge!

IRC channels also have the added benefit of not being PS rooms.

 

[soulgazer]

Raseri hollywood

 

[watashi]

tl;dr: Sam bought mirc but he had nobody to talk with

 

[atomicllamas]

IRC can be brought back to life with the power of mutual respect.

 

[slated]

yeah, I use to idle a lot on irc but stopped visiting as frequently because I never found it to be particularly active; to put it this way, I could divide my attention between going on the PS chatroom or going on IRC, but since people talking on IRC was relatively rare (at least when I was there) and PS chat moved quickly and was very active, I talked more and paid more attention to the PS chat. I'd love to see #xyuu become more active and I'll try harder to participate more in the near future. I agree with all of the points made in the OP about PS and it's probably the reason I stopped going there as frequently, so i'd love to see the irc become more active for those of us driven away by frequent spammers, trolls and people who just don't know what they're doing.

 

[Hogg]

Same as others have said, I made a point to be on for a while but found #xyuu dead as a door nail after UUPL ended. I stopped bothering to log on after a while, sticking to Skype or Google Hangouts or PS for chatting.

I definitely prefer IRC to PS for general chatting from a usability perspective - PS is kind of terrible feature-wise - so I hope this push to make #xyuu more active works out. I'll make a point to log on when I can.

 

[ryan]

Yeah let me just talk on #neverused rather than the place where everybody is actually talking and where I can battle. Sure thing haha.

IRC is dead. Let it be dead.

 

[doomsday doink]

Yeah let me just talk on #neverused rather than the place where everybody is actually talking and where I can battle. Sure thing haha.

IRC is dead. Let it be dead.

Aren't you like IRC co-lead or some shit

 

[ryan]

That's #pokemon not tier chans -_-

 

[Nightingales]

I think that it's dying because it's much simpler to just log on to showdown. Hell, I didn't know how to use the IRC for maybe six months until I had to ask Kink to help me out with it, and other people probably just would rather not bother with the effort.

 

[atomicllamas]

Yeah let me just talk on #neverused rather than the place where everybody is actually talking and where I can battle. Sure thing haha.

IRC is dead. Let it be dead.

Ya but no one gets butthurt on IRC when I tell them the best Typhlosion set is using Delphox D:

 

[Malin]

I visited #xyuu some weeks ago, stay around for about one week whenever I was on but since it was dead I let it die lol

I keep logging tho if it gets a breathing, otherwise PS Chat room services me fine, UnderUsed room isn't so bad tbf

 

[TheTabKey]

The PS! rooms have infinitely more uses and potential than IRC.

The only benefit IRC has over PS! rooms is that you won't get as many random inexperienced players, so if you're looking for an elitist socializing group you can find one in an IRC room. From all the IRCs I've ever used, that's basically what I've found them to be. NO OFFENSE to ANYONE, I'm just saying that's what they usually turn out to be. And besides, newer players will probably just stick to the PS! rooms anyway since they might not even KNOW about the IRC Rooms. Meaning that everyone in there are players that are more well known and close knit. Not that that's a bad thing, it's just very unwelcoming to newer players. Don't get me wrong, PS! rooms can be complete cancer from time to time, but there are more new players, more rooms that are more easily available (such as the Tutoring rooms that new players can go to if they really need help, unlike IRC which doesn't even show you what other rooms there are), and more diversity.

Aside from that, on PS! you can actually use your Smogon name (Mr. Sam The Starmie), you can battle people, and there are always going to be more people which means there's never a dull moment. IRC can be dead for hours on end no matter how many people are in it because the only thing to do is talk.

I like IRC room but they're inherently disgusting and they lack potential compared to PS! rooms, again, EXCEPT you're looking for a place free of random inexperienced noobs (but PS! has private chat rooms anyway, doesn't it? Same thing really...).

 

[ryan]

You can use whatever non-registered name you want on IRC and PS, and because there are loads of IRC servers and only one PS, you're more likely to get whatever name you want on IRC.

 

[AM]

Most of the contributions for CC aren't going to be taking into account from IRC unless this is a UU forum exclusive thing, so that's just a flat out lie. I only use IRC for council discussion since it's easier to contact guys like Mcmeghan and M Dragon through that, as well as this Wcop since it was a necessity. Otherwise I'm using PS or if more personal Skype.

I am on PS a decent amount (I'm a Leader on PS and a Room Owner for the UU Room) but for me and many others it's really difficult to be engaging with new users. The PS Room gets flooded with a lot of random people who don't really want to contribute and just ask random inane questions. I don't really have a problem with that since those users need some sort of outlet as well. What this does though is disrupt the ability to have really focused discussions and brings the overall chat quality down.

Or just, you know, shoot a PM, or actually engage in the craziness and represent the title you were given, a leader. Could've just said you wanted more IRC activity in UU rather than use PS as an example that has their own entire culture by itself and these random people don't become so random when you see them all the time which is how they make connections. Focused discussion is based on auth and role model participation anyways so if the auths aren't leading it that's another situation all together.

I mean I think at this point people know I have a lot of issues with PS from a global standpoint in how they handle matters but all these problems in correlation to how it's relatable to PS seems more of a personal problem or a minority one.

 

[Sam]

The reason I use PS as an example is because it's what has been drawing activity away from PS. There seems to be a general idea that PS replacing IRC which I don't think should be true - they still serve two different purposes. I have been a Room Owner on PS for like 8 months at this point so I do know how rooms operate and how to meet good players on them. You're right in that it is an entire culture and that's kind of my point. Some users who "grew up" on PS have said they wish to have a slowed down, more laid back kind of chat as well.

PS is definitely craziness that can be engaged, but I think IRC is a good alternative for a lot of users as well and having both be active is very healthy for the community.

 

[Kink]

As 'healthy' as it is, it's always going to be an alternative. PS simply has more functionality. I have to look away from IRC to do all my relevant teambuilding, battling, and talking (to the ~200 other users who don't use IRC). As much as I like the idea of a quieter space, what you're doing is no different than creating a private room for PS for all the experienced players to go hang out. Personally, PS is far more rewarding for me as a contributor that focuses in as many areas of UU as possible. Our roles as leaders of this sub forum should be to focus our attention to the most successful aspects of our tier, and not try to revive dead hangouts. If PS UU is cancerous, then fix the room, and start by helping me bridge the gap between subforum and the room. Commit to the demands of leading a userbase that's never under 120 users at any given time, and mould the users into engaging contributors that add to a healthy and exciting tier, both competitively and socially.

I hate to say this, but this IRC issue is just a distraction from the larger focus at hand, which is how to mould the PS room, the focus of our Gen 6 playerbase, into a room that you, as a Tier Leader, can be proud of.

 

[Waiv]

It's easy for americans to say, for my time zone, it's just dead.

 

[LeoLancaster]

I've been on #xyuu a lot today and already there's a significant increase in activity level from what I remember from before, which is encouraging since it's only the first day of the revival. I think it's funny how the decline of IRC was a negative cycle of "I don't go on IRC because it's dead --> IRC becomes more dead --> even less people join," and it looks like this revival is going to be the exact reverse: "I'll go on IRC because it's not so dead anymore --> chat is less dead --> more people join." Of course I can't tell this from the first day only but so far it's really promising.

King UU I agree with a lot of the sentiment in your post about improving the PS UU room, but at the end of the day that room will always have a lot of people who aren't interested in contributing to the forums nor really improving their skill. Because of this, there's only so much you can do to make the UU room a better place for higher-level metagame discussion and the like, which IRC is excellent for. There's also a very important distinction between a private PS room and #xyuu, which is that anyone can join #xyuu. I know this kind of goes against my earlier point, but it's unlikely the people limiting the UU room will join IRC because the main point of joining is to improve at the metagame. If PS UU room is like the ladder, then #xyuu is like the UU Open - anyone can participate in either, but one will have higher quality just by its very nature.

 

[tehy]

i think King uu's absolutely right, in that IRC is dead and it doesn't necessarily need to be revived.

let's start with this- in terms of functionality, what does IRC have over PS? It has worse autojoin, worse logging into your username, worse PM system, worse reconnecting, either needs a client or is kinda crappy mibbit.

meanwhile, you can't find battles, teambuild, or watch battles alongside it nearly as easily, requiring you to shrink your main window and fit IRC on the side

here's how you revive #XYUU : Make a private PS room called XY UU, and roomvoice everyone in the UU community, as well as anyone with a smogon account who asks. let in only people who have a smogon account, to stop the randos from getting all up in it. the main flaw in this plan is taht people might feel like they are left out of some private club, and it's not necessarily a solvable problem (do you just...cover it up? people could find out if you advertise it on smogon, which you probably would want to), but hopefully people would get that they can join if they just join smogon. outside of this, and the initial effort to set it up, you'd see a lot more activity and a better experience for all the users in this channel.

edit:

i've used Mirc and Mibbit. Mirc has about equal Ajoin, arguably a bit better, but it does require a method of setup which is not immediately obvious. its rejoin is as good as PS's.

as for mibbit, its rejoin is worse (every time you rejoin, you must type in your name), its registration is worse (you have to resend the password each time), and its ajoin requires the sending of the password as well.

a private PS room of this variety would be about as circlejerky as any IRC room

 

[Kink]

Actually after further deliberation, and some creative thinking, I think there's potential here.

As much as I love PS, I do admit that it would be helpful to rely on IRC as the UU "help" medium for immediate question answering as it pertains to important UU topics like tiering or projects. Even though I still think the PS issues need to be addressed, I think this actually has more potential that I originally thought. This extra level of "exclusive assistance" gives young contributors more opportunities to showcase just how much they can help and offer the tier, leading to more opportunities such as more project leading or even a CC badge.

I think that I've changed my mind.

 

[Bouff]

i dont know why people are getting the idea that irc necessarily needs to be related to ps per se

first off irc doesn't have worse autojoin or worse logging in, it just takes more effort lol. i mean if you're using mibbit you can literally just google "how to register for mibbit" and find it with little problem lol (if some people are wondering how to register this is pretty good). you can do the same thing if you choose to use a client like mirc or hexchat too. i mean tehy idk if you've used mirc at all (which is fine because it takes a while to set up [but it is so worth it]) but if you did and you set it up then you'd kind of know that it has a ton of functionality over ps lol. you can save logs and reconnect within pretty much seconds. i also don't get why having to switch from windows / tabs is a bad thing either, while it is more convenient to have your buildin tools n such on the same page it's not like it's a struggle to move your mouse and click.

also the biggest problem i see with making a private ps room is pretty much the same problem that every private ps room has, and that's the fact that it's extremely circlejerk-ish. i get that in this scenario it's meant to be more of a community thing but over time i feel like it's just gonna become obsolete..i don't really see the problem for some users to integrate in a sense to irc. there's nothing really wrong with ps chats but irc is just better if you want a less chaotic enviroment, the main reason ps was brought up was because it was taking away from the userbase